


A Hand-Made Christmas (Familial LAMP)

by mt_reade



Series: Sanders Sides Short Stories! [16]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Presents, Family, Family Fluff, Fluff, LAMP/CALM - Freeform, M/M, Multi, Other, Patton just loves christmas, Patton just wants everyone to be happy, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, and his family - Freeform, familial LAMP - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:01:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24122539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mt_reade/pseuds/mt_reade
Summary: Patton's been thinking about Christmas.--A short story inspired by "Christmas Presents" by Stuart McLean.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil & Creativity | Roman & Logic | Logan & Morality | Patton & Thomas Sanders, Logic | Logan Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders, Logic | Logan Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders
Series: Sanders Sides Short Stories! [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1721833
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	A Hand-Made Christmas (Familial LAMP)

One night at dinner, a Sunday night late in October, Patton set down his fork, looked around the table, and said, "So, I've been thinking about Christmas lately..."

Logan, Patton's husband, gasped.

Well... he didn't _really_ gasp. It was more of a hiccup than a gasp. Although, it wasn't a hiccup technically, and could've easily been misconstrued as a gasp. Everyone at the table turned and looked at him. "Excuse me," he said. He tried his best to smile, and tugged at his tie a little.

Patton began again. "I've been thinking about Christmas," he said, cheerily.

"Me too." His youngest son, Roman, said wistfully. It was as if he could already see the stuffed stockings and wrapped toys stacked as tall as he was. He had always shared Patton's extremely early Christmas cheer, although for much a different reason than Patton himself, but that never bothered the father. His comment earned a judgemental look from his older brother.

"And I was thinking," said Patton, "that it would be fun if this year..." Logan was shaking his head slowly back and forth unconsciously, staring at his husband while a vast array of emotions flickered across his face like playing cards; despair, hope, confusion, and finally the last card... horror.

"...and would also be, y'know, more in the spirit of Christmas..." Patton continued, "if we _made_ presents for each other. Instead of buying them?"

Patton's words were met with dead silence.

Then, Virgil dropped his own fork. "What?" he said, his teenage sass seeping into the word like food dye.

Roman's eyes were wide. "But, everything I want is made out of plastic. Does anyone here know how to mould plastic?" He asked, eyes sweeping around the table at the other three members of his family.

Upon seeing the expressions on his family's faces, Patton was quick to add: "I don't mean _every_ present. We don't have to make everything. I thought maybe we could put our names in a hat or something, and we could all draw a name, and we'd have to make a present for the person whose name we drew. I thought it'd be nice!"

"I like exploding stuff too!" Roman added, and his legs shot out under the table, colliding with his brother's knee, which made Virgil hiss. "Exploding things are good, especially if they're made of plastic."

Virgil dropped his head into his hands, purple bangs scrunching up in his prying fingers. " _God_."

Logan was nodding, a small smile playing at his lips. He couldn't refuse Patton, he'd never been able to.

***

It was two nights later when they drew names. Patton wrote everyone's name onto little sticky notes that he'd stolen from Logan's study. He'd then folded them up, and dropped them into one of his favourite popcorn bowls. He'd gathered up the whole crew. He'd torn Logan from his work, Virgil from his phone, and Roman from his electronic train set. He'd sat them all in a row on the old brown couch in the living room, where they all waited with varying expressions on their faces, all unreadable. Patton, though, was grinning from ear to ear, swishing the bowl around, and urging them all to pick one.

"No one say who they get," said Patton.

"What if you get yourself?" asked Roman.

But, no one got themselves, and no one said who they got. In fact, nobody seemed particularly interested in who got whom. Patton had hoped that everyone would be excited... but no one was, at all.

***

A couple uneventful weeks went by, winter settling gracefully onto their home town. It was a beautiful winter. A winter of fluffy snow with just the right amount of stickiness for Roman to pull Virgil outside to build a snowman with him (with a little urging from Patton). With icicles so clear that they looked like they'd been carved from crystal. It was an winter for ice skating, and hot chocolate, and bonfires. The days were bright and crisp, with only a few snowstorms here and there... but that was until the second Monday of the new month, when the winds began to blow. There'd been a storm that night, and the next morning, Logan had to dig out his car in order to even begin his trek to work. Soon after that, the clocks were turned back, and greyness descended on the city.

It was November now, and everyone was busy. Only Patton, who was the busiest of all, was thinking about Christmas. The night that he and his family had pulled the names out of the bowl, Patton had waited for the last piece of paper. When he had unfolded it, he'd read Roman's name. He had thought long and and as hard as he could about what _he_ , of all people, could make a ten-year-old boy for Christmas that he'd enjoy. He had no idea, and was completely stumped. He didn't know plastics. He didn't know explosives.

Besides, Patton wanted to make his son something... meaningful.

Logan was no help.

"There's something about children that you have to understand," his husband had explained to him one night, after Patton had come to him with his dilemma. "They _aren't_ meaningful."

However, that didn't deter Patton. He was convinced now. He wanted to make Roman something that would matter to him. Something that he would love and hold onto as he grew up. Something that he'd take with him when he moved out. Like... a nice pen, or a guitar. He'd thought about a chess set for a while, as Roman had always liked competition and the idea of knights. But, Patton decided that although, with help, he might have been able to make a rudimentary chessboard, he would never in a million years be able to carve the chess _pieces_. So, he eventually abandoned that idea. Then he thought maybe a backpack, but he soon shied away from that too. Along with a new hockey stick, a treehouse, and a sleeping bag.

The idea of building Roman a chair came to Patton like a bolt out of the blue. He had seen a brochure advertising a night course on building them at Virgil's high school. Seven Thursday nights, two hundred dollars, all materials included. Patton checked the calendar as soon as he got home, and if he had counted right, he'd be done a week before Christmas.

It was perfect. Just what he'd been looking for. Something that he could make for his youngest son that he could use now, but something, if he did a good job, Roman could use for the rest of his life. Something that he might even hand down to his own children, years down the road. Patton sat down, and closed his eyes. He could see it now, building a big comfy chair. A chair that you could get lost in. He imagined Roman as a grown man, reading the paper in the chair he'd made him. Patton pictured Roman being surrounded by _his_ family, long after he himself had passed on, saying: "Your grandfather made this for me when I was ten."

His heart warmed at the very thought.

So, he enrolled in the classes, and promptly missed the first two. This first time it was because of work, and the second time was because Virgil had caught the flu, and Patton would not leave the house until he'd spoon-fed him all of the chicken broth. Because, it didn't matter how much Virgil told him to just go, or the fact that Virgil was seventeen now and could well-enough feed himself, Virgil was still Patton's kiddo, and he would hold him and kiss his forehead and spoon him soup until he couldn't any longer.

But, he didn't miss a single class after that. He applied himself as diligently as he could. Although every step was a struggle, although each screw, nail, and saw cut a mystery of momentous proportions, and although his chair was emerging much more slowly and tenuously than all the other chairs in the class... Thursday, the day that he got to work on it, quickly became Patton's favourite night of the week.

He loved going to his chair class. The only thing that made Patton's heart sink a little was that no one else in his family seemed to have embraced the holiday project. He was alone on this Christmas journey.

Patton had asked Virgil about it one night.

"You don't understand," Virgil said. "We're different, Dad. You're into the _spirit_ of Christmas, which is great and all, but I prefer the other stuff."

"The other stuff?" Patton had asked. Christmas had always been about family to him.

"You know, the warm sweaters, the T.V. specials."

Little conversations like that worried Patton, and he began to think that he was the only one who was taking this project to heart.

Then, one morning, when Roman was getting out of the backseat in front of his school, he looked at his father through the rearview mirror and said:

"I want to learn how to knit."

***

The biggest challenges of being a parent, for Patton at least, were always the surprises. He had long since abandoned the idea of somehow preparing himself for what was to come, the next stage in his children's development. Even when he thought he'd be prepared for Roman after going through most of it with Virgil first, he was continuously surprised. Both of his sons were so different. Virgil's reserved and defensive personality was so different than Roman's brash, in-your-face, aggressive one. So, Patton had eventually accepted that no matter how he tried to prime himself, he would always be two steps behind his children.

If there was one thing Patton could count on, it was that his sons would pop up, at the most unexpected moments, with the most bizarre ideas of life and how it worked. He could count on them to hold opinions so contrary to what they'd believed only the day before, that they'd leave him open-mouthed and speechless.

Like, for example, the night that Roman had returned from his nursery school and announced with quiet determination that he'd "quit."

Like when a five-year-old Virgil had crawled, sobbing, under the kitchen table, and refused to come out until Logan promised to never cook him hot dogs for lunch again, _ever_. "I don't believe you!" He had sobbed, even after Logan made the promise.

Like the spring when Roman had developed a pathological fear of Big Bird from the kids' television show Sesame Street, which evolved into a fear of _all_ birds, a fear that lasted for months.

And now... now Roman wanted to learn how to knit.

Patton himself had learned before he and Logan had ever adopted children. He had been so excited about the idea of getting a newborn, that he learned to knit clothing items for his child-to-be. By the time they had actually brought Virgil home, Patton had accumulated a drawer full of socks, toques, misshapen pullovers, and other nicknacks all made from brightly-coloured yarn.

Patton gave Roman his first knitting lessons that night, in the boy's bedroom.

"Shut the door." Roman said.

Patton soon found out that teaching a ten-year-old boy how to knit was about as easy as building a chair. They'd sit side by side on the bed, and they both held a set of knitting needles out in front of them, as if they were about to fly a plane.

"Watch me." Patton said gently, as he ever so slowly made a loop in the blue yarn and slipped it onto the needle.

He was trying to teach Roman how to cast on.

He glanced over at him. Roman was staring at his hands in despair. So, Patton delicately took the needles from him, and completed the first row himself. That way he had a place to start from. Perhaps that'd be easier. Once finished, he handed them back and said: "Okay. Now, do exactly what I do."

After an hour or so, Roman sort of had it. More or less. Kind of.

"What is it that you want to knit?" Patton asked, smiling as he coaxed his son through another row of stitches.

"A sweater." Roman said.

"Oh," said Patton.

Roman had drawn Virgil's name.

Patton had to teach him again right from the beginning the next night. And again the night after that. And the night following that, too. Roman did fine, as long as he kept going, but lost track every time he set down his needles for longer than an hour or so.

But he got better.

By the end of November, Roman was good enough to sit in front of the television and knit while he watched Disney movies. But, whenever Virgil appeared, he would quickly thrust the needles into Patton's hand or stuff them under the couch. Patton eventually went downstairs and dug out his mother's old black-and-white portable out of the storage room, and set it up in Roman's room. Roman sat cooped up in his bedroom for the entirety of that weekend, the needles clicking away like a train.

***

It was the weekend following that Roman got invited to Remy's house for a sleepover, and he asked Patton what he could take his knitting in. Patton bit his lip, worried that he'd get teased, but he packed it up nonetheless, and Roman headed off to his friend's with his toothbrush, his sleeping bag, and his bag of wool.

At nine o'clock that evening, Patton got a phone call from Remy's mother, who said: "You aren't going to believe this. You know what they're doing? They're downstairs, watching Lethal Weapon Three... and _knitting_."

Suddenly, knitting was the thing to do. Twenty-four hours went by, and then _everyone_ wanted to knit. It was only a couple days later that Roman's hockey team had a tournament out of town. It was the Sanders' turn to drive, so Logan drove Roman, Remy, and a couple other boys up for the game.

"They all sat in the back." Logan said, once he'd gotten back. "They were talking about hockey and the game and how they were going to cream the other team... the kind of thing that you'd expect to hear from a backseat of little boys. But then, one of them said, 'Damn it! I dropped a stitch!'" Logan chuckled. "It was rather funny, actually."

Patton didn't think it was funny. As far as he could tell, his Christmas project was headed off the rails. He was _worried_ about Roman. He thought that he was getting compulsive about the knitting. He would disappear into his room and sit on the edge of his bed and knit for _hours_. Then, he'd unravel everything he did. It was never perfect enough.

"It's fun to destroy it." Roman had said to him one night. "I like the feeling of the knots coming undone."

It didn't seem healthy.

But that wasn't the worst of it.

On the afternoon that Logan had driven the boys out of town, Emile Picani had shown up at the front door.

"Is Virgil home?" He asked. He was holding a package wrapped in brown paper carefully through his brown fluffy mittens. He peered past Patton and into the house, to try to spot his best friend.

"No, he's not, sorry kiddo." Patton smiled apologetically. "He's with his tutor right now."

"Oh, okay." Emile said. "Have a nice day then, Mr. Sanders!" He turned to go, but then he stopped and turned back around. He held up the parcel. "Could you give this to him?"

"Sure thing!" Patton said, taking the package carefully. "Is there a message I should relay as well?"

Emile nodded. "Just tell him that the present is ready. Also that he owes me ten bucks."

Patton's heart sunk at that moment. He was fairly certain that Virgil had pulled Logan's name out of the pot on that night in October, and that placed Patton in a really bad position. Of course he wanted to talk to Logan about what was going on. _Virgil had paid his best friend to make a present for him!_ It was just so contrary to the spirit of family that Patton had been trying to create that he had no idea what to do about it. He always went to Logan when he didn't know what to do. But, the gift was supposed to be _for_ Logan. And Patton didn't want to hurt him.

Anyways, as far as Patton could tell, Logan hadn't begun anything himself.

***

There was barely a week to go before Christmas, and Patton's entire project was turning into a fiasco. His chair was a mess, Virgil was cheating, and Logan thought that Roman's knitting compulsion was amusing.

That night, on his way to bed, Patton found Roman under the covers, knitting by flashlight. He went and sat down, and hesitantly put a hand on Roman's shoulder through the blanket.

"Are you okay, kiddo?" He asked.

There was no response. Patton pulled the covers back from over Roman's head, to reveal his little boy crying. He sniffled. "I'll never finish the sweater." He said, sounding heartbroken. He pointed at the sum total of his knitting: a rectangle of purple wool about six inches wide and a foot and a half long. One side of the rectangle was completely asymmetrical.

"It's... lovely." Patton said, picking up the rectangle.

"No, it's not." Roman said bitterly. "I hate it."

He took it from Patton's hands, and began to unravel it in front of him.

***

Patton brought Roman's chair home on the Thursday before Christmas. The next night, Logan found _him_ in the basement in tears. He had mounds of red fabric at his feet, and he was trying desperately to tack a large piece of foam to one of the arms.

Logan watched him for a moment without saying anything. Then, he reached out and touched the top of the chair silently. It wobbled unsteadily.

"It's pathetic." Patton said, dropping his hammer on the floor in defeat.

"It looks... It looks like it was made with a lot of love." Logan said.

" _It looks_ like it was made by a two-year-old." Patton pushed his glasses up his forehead and wiped the tears from his face desperately with the back of his hand.

"Well, it isn't covered yet." Logan offered. "Any chair without upholstery is going to look... awkward."

"Pathetic." Patton shoved his glasses back into their proper place. "Not awkward, pathetic." He shook his head a little, and tried to pull back that holiday cheery attitude he'd been trying to get the others to embrace for months. He stooped down and grabbed his hammer. "I can fix it. I can fix it. I can fix it." He was trying less to convince Logan, and more to convince himself.

But, half an hour later, and Patton still detested his contraption. Tears were streaming steadily down his face from frustration, and he looked dejected. "I give up!" He said at last. "I can't do this."

Logan looked over at him. "I have a suggestion," he said slowly. "May I make a suggestion?"

Patton didn't say anything, but he didn't walk away, either.

Logan took a breath, before resuming with caution. "You could spend the next few days down here wrestling with that material, and I believe that you'll cover the chair. But, we both know that you'll end up with a bad chair."

Patton nodded sombrely.

Logan continued. "So, forget about the foam padding. Don't put fabric on it at all. What you have there isn't a chair without covering, it's a go-cart without wheels. Put some wheels on that, and you'll have a pretty happy little boy on Christmas morning." He slipped a comforting arm around Patton's shoulders, and pulled him into his side supportively.

***

The next night, after dinner, Roman called Patton up to his room. He was frantic.

"The needles won't go through anymore!" He cried, waving at a pile of yarn lying on his bed, another rectangle of knitting, where each row got progressively tighter and tighter, so much so that then rectangle was now more of a triangle than a rectangle.

"You have to relax." Patton said.

"I only have three days left!"

"Three days is not a lot of time." Patton said, and Roman nodded his head in vigorous agreement. "But," Patton smiled, "it should be enough time for a pro like you to knit a scarf."

"I'm knitting a sweater, not a scarf."

"Oh," said Patton, "I thought you were knitting a scarf. Here, let me start it for you." Then, once again, Patton began a row of stitches and once again handed it to his son. Then he stood up. "I should go help your father with the dishes."

***

On Christmas Eve, after Roman and Virgil were in bed, and the last present was wrapped, Patton called Logan down to the basement. "Can you help me carry this upstairs?" He asked.

He had taken the wheels off of the kids' old wagon, and attached them to the bottom of his chair. Logan climbed into it for a moment, and smiled. Patton had left the wagon handle in place, and it rested between his legs like a joystick.

"He'll love it." He said.

And then he screamed.

Patton was now pushing him toward the washing machine, hands gripping the back of the once-chair, pushing Logan toward the laundry station. First gently, then faster, and faster, until he was full on running.

"Where's the brake?!" was the last Logan said before tumbling head-first into a basket of towels.

***

They could see the light sleeping out from under the door to Roman's room when they went up for bed at almost one. They could also hear the sound of his needles rocking together.

"He's still at it." Patton said worriedly. "What should we do?"

"Come to bed." Logan said. "His door is shut. He wants to do this himself."

"He's making Virgil a scarf." Patton said quietly as he prepared the bed. "Gosh, I hope he'll wear it... at least around the house."

"He's going to love the go-cart." Logan said, as he pulled on his pyjama shirt, took off his glasses, and climbed into bed.

Patton didn't say anything. He turned off the lights, and clambered into bed beside Logan. Not close enough for them to touch, but close enough for him to feel Logan's warmth beside him. It took him a moment to realize that his glasses were still on, and he took them off after a moment, folding the arms and setting them on the beside table. Then, Patton lay on his back, fingers clutching the sheets, staring up at the ceiling.

"Virgil drew your name." Patton said, eventually. "But there's something you should know about his present for you."

"No." Logan whispered. "Don't tell me anything. I want to be surprised."

"Logan... did I ruin Christmas?" Patton asked, voice faint and uncertain.

"No, not at all. I know that you're worried, dear. But there's no need. It'll be fine."

***

And so it was.

Virgil, it turned out, had not paid Emile Picani to make his father's present. He had written to his grandmother in Cape Breton and asked her to mail him a photo of Logan and _his_ father to the Picani's house in order to hide it from Logan, whose job it was to get the mail on his way home from work. It was a photograph that had struck a chord in Virgil the very first time that he saw it, which had been two summers ago when he'd travelled up there for reading week by himself.

The picture had been taken when Logan was six years old. In it, he was standing on the piano bench in the parlour, which made him about the size of his father, who was looking at him and laughing. His head was back and to the side. Virgil's own father (who was but a little boy) was also laughing. He had started to fold over at the waist, his hand moving toward his mouth. The same way that Virgil's brother's did in moments of hilarity.

When Emile Picani gave him the picture, Virgil took it to a photographer and had it copied, before sending the original back to Cape Breton. He then had his copy framed with wood he'd painted himself. He'd had it wrapped and hidden in his closet five days before Christmas. Three times he had opened it to look at it, and three times he had to wrap it all back up again.

But Patton didn't know this when he fell asleep worried about Christmas morning, about Virgil, and about the go-cart. He only slept for a few measly hours, before he woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. So, he decided to give up on sleep, and go make himself a cup of tea.

It wasn't until his stood up that he noticed the ribbon tied around his wrist. The ribbon was red, and ran from his wrist to the floor, where it ran across the carpet for maybe two feet, before gathering into a small pile, that it eventually exited, and lead toward the hallway. Patton, still dopey with sleep, started to gather the ribbon up. He followed the ribbon into the hall, down the stairs, past the tree, and to the kitchen. By the time he got to the back door he was holding an armful of ribbon, and he was smiling.

The Sanders have a pear tree in the corner of their backyard. Patton followed the ribbon out the back door, and across the yard to the pear tree. The end of the ribbon, the end not tied to his wrist, was attached to a switch fastened at the base of the tree. There was a note.

_Merry Christmas. I chose you._   
_Love, Logan._

Patton flicked the switch, and the most amazing thing happened.

The pear tree slowly and gracefully came to life. Little lights began to snap on on the branches above his head, and then, as if the tree were animated by Walt Disney himself, the lights spread along the branches until the entire tree was glowing golden. A light that cast almost magically over the backyard.

Logan woke at four, and sensed that he was alone in bed. He reached out to his right, and sure enough, the spot beside him was empty. He lay there for a moment, trying to will himself awake the rest of the way. He got up, and called out his husband's name. Then he walked over to their second story bedroom window, and looked outside.

Patton was sitting at the picnic table. He was wearing Logan's work boots, with the laces undone, and Logan's winter coat over his pyjamas. On his head was a toque that belonged to Virgil. He was cradling a mug of tea in his hands, and staring up at the pear tree that looked like it was blazing with the light of a hundred wax candles in wonder. From the perspective of the bedroom, Patton looked to be only about twelve-years-old.

It had started to snow; big, fat, fluffy flakes were dropping lazily from the sky. Patton was watching how the snowflakes twinkled like fairies as they passed through the circle of light emitted from the tree.

Logan pushes open the bedroom window and called, "Merry Christmas."

Patton looked up at him, in surprise. He stood, and waved up at him. Logan returned it.

Then, Patton set down his tea, bent over and started to make a snowball. It looked like it glowed in the light of the tree. Luckily for Logan, he didn't work fast enough to prevent Logan from gathering some snow of the window sill, and catching up with him.

The two of them threw their snowballs at almost the same moment, and they both laughed when they collided in mid air, and exploded in a way similar to icy fireworks. Then the snow tumbled down again, and their giggles were the only sound splitting the delicate silence of the night.  
  
  



End file.
